Prior to the launch of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, a group of 14 modders and developers released fan projects that sought to be the definitive modern way to play Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Titled re3 and reVC respectively, the releases both featured reverse-engineered code, and were huge hits within the homebrew community, with developers even porting the games to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation Vita. GTA series publisher Take-Two however, who was currently working on their own official remaster of 3, Vice City, and San Andreas, decided to issue a takedown to the re3 and reVC GitHub pages.

From there, the modders fought back against the takedown, telling GitHub that Take-Two was mistaken in its claims. This lead to Take-Two taking legal action, and suing the 14 individuals involved with the project--four named defendants and ten unknown "John Does". After months of ongoing dispute in court, and a report of a possible settlement being agreed upon, both sides have suddenly decided to dismiss the lawsuit.

In accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), by and between the undersigned counsel for the Plaintiff, Take Two Interactive Software, Inc., and counsel for Defendants Angelo Papenhoff, Theo Morra, Eray Orçunus, and Adrian Graber (“Named Defendants”), that all claims asserted in the above-referenced action against the Named Defendants are dismissed with prejudice, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), with each party to bear its own costs, expenses and attorneys’ fees. The remaining Defendants are not dismissed by this Stipulation.

Interestingly, it is noted in the legal document that the dismissal of Take-Two's claim against the modders only applies to the named defendants. While those four are safe from further legal troubles regarding the case, the other ten individuals could face action should Take-Two decide to file again.

Source

 

[tabzer]

got some backup copies of latest version of re3 and reVC from a reuploaded site lmao so they can suck my ass.

Mhmm. I believe a good ass sucking was apart of the NDS, but who could say?

 

[Ericzander]

Back in 2014 I made a rom hack of A Link to the Past that approximately 10 people played. Ever since I've been sleeping with one eye open out of fear that Nintendo will break down my door and shoot my dog.

 

[gamecartgirl]

Take two is greedy

 

[FAST6191]

Take two is greedy

Maybe, this is not really a symptom of it though.

How much in legal fees did the defendant rack up though? 6 or 7 figures?

Probably not that high for getting to this stage, though I did not look up anything about the firm representing matters (nor if any of the activist set -- in the US for matters of copyright and technology like this the EFF would be a notable player here https://www.eff.org/ , institute for justice being another more general one, got involved as that can offset things and this is arguably a first of its kind or landmark case which they do gravitate towards).
This is more likely to be a boutique specialist law firm (maybe a local one to find them/reference the case initially).
Doubtless in the range of some annual salaries (not necessarily a coder capable of this kind of work) or a significant fraction thereof, and money most of those ever reading this would be devastated to lose, but numbers tend to only get as high as your range once it gets to jury trial or something similar. If this is more likely limited to explaining the case to the client (options they have and such), depositions, analysing documents (making sure rockstar/take two did not do some kind of epic screw up that you could get out of things on) and doing relevant appearances (it is not really a complicated criminal case where you need your own investigators, partner grade lawyers handling individual elements of the case and such like) and a few out of court meetings. Even more so if Rockstar/Take Two just wanted a bit of fear, uncertainty and doubt out there in the world for the future would be reverse engineers (I am troubled by the word modder in the title of this, not inaccurate but might also convey the wrong message, though more general modders have certainly had their issues with things) which is the only reason I can see for them dropping the case at this point (covered a few others in the last post).

 

[64bitmodels]

This is good. The world is healing

 

[Kioku]

This is good. The world is healing

No it‘s not. You know this didn’t come with some stipulation and a hefty fee…

 

[raxadian]

That's great and all, but I still don't trust Take-Two.

They are the same guys who sued a popular videogame uust because it had "Take Two" in the name.

 

[The Catboy]

That's great and all, but I still don't trust Take-Two.

You shouldn’t, nor should you trust any large corporation. Take-Two can afford to take the hit on legal fees and shit, the people they sued most likely can’t. This is largely why corporations abuse the court systems

 

[Quincy]

Take two is greedy

Take-Two more like Take-All (or Dismiss-All in this case xD)

Note that there's a second document filed next to the other one which dismisses the unnamed defendants without prejudice:


Source

Seeing how you're the genius coder that ported RE3 and REVC over to WiiU, do you think RESA is possible for Wii U? I've got some coding skill myself but sadly I don't have any idea how to port these kinds of things, else I'd already be balls deep in code right now

I would love to revisit the Grove with ma homies Ryder and Big Smoke

 

[Xzi]

If their "definitive edition" is the kind of quality we can expect from them going forward, ownership of the IP should be stripped from T2 and awarded to these modders instead.

 

[Dungeonseeker]

LMAO,

R* b4 GTA DE: Dis gun be da best version, delists old versions, takes down multiple mods
R* after GTA DE: We promise we will fix our broken ass game, you expect better bla bla bla
R* one year later: We obviously decided it wasn't worth patching DE so we're gonna drop lawsuits and expect the fans to do our jobs for us

 

[smf]

so we're gonna drop lawsuits and expect the fans to do our jobs for us

We don't know what is in the NDA, but they didn't just drop the lawsuits (the post here is misleading)

 

[JeepX87]

If their "definitive edition" is the kind of quality we can expect from them going forward, ownership of the IP should be stripped from T2 and awarded to these modders instead.

Yeah, many decades ago, copyright protection was 28 years.

If 1909 copyright law was in effect without amendments, everything made before 1995 would be in public domain like all of NES games by now.

 

[smf]

Yeah, many decades ago, copyright protection was 28 years.

And everything back then was shit.

Now it takes a lot more money and man power to create anything.

 

[Maq47]

I would love to revisit the Grove with ma homies Ryder and Big Smoke

I’ll have two number 9s, a number 9 large, a number 6 with extra dip, a number 7, two number 45s, one with cheese, and a large soda.

 

[Quincy]

I’ll have two number 9s, a number 9 large, a number 6 with extra dip, a number 7, two number 45s, one with cheese, and a large soda.

Don't forget a steaming Hot cup of Coffee

 

[SylverReZ]

Don't forget a steaming Hot cup of Coffee

Ah yes, what a scandal that was.

 

[Quincy]

Ah yes, what a scandal that was.

I know, right?! Studios removing content from a game after people have already bought the game, in these times that would cause a flood of negative publicity and permanent damage to the companies' public image and rep

 

[SylverReZ]

I know, right?! Developers removing content from a game after people have already bought the game, in these times that would cause a flood of negative publicity and permanent damage to the companies' public image and rep

Because nobody knew any better. Back then, all of this was very new, unlike now you can put out whatever explicit content you want without getting taken down for it. I praise for the Internet Archive and piracy. Yo-ho-ho!

 

[Quincy]

Because nobody knew any better. Back then, all of this was very new, unlike now you can put out whatever explicit content you want without getting taken down for it. I praise for the Internet Archive and piracy. Yo-ho-ho!

the game is PEGI18/M for violence, drug use, sex so explicity should not have been an issue imo.